I'm doing it again.
Poetry. It's like a sickness with me.
To a Girl who won't Draw a Self-Portrait
Do you think yourself so unlovely, you
Who draw and paint the things I only dream?
You have not beauty's current fashion, true -
Knife-honed, bony, gel-padded dolls who scream
Emptiness behind their stretched, false faces -
Yours is the true, enduring loveliness:
Depth of thought, bright humor; and those graces
Clothe face and eye and ev'ry kinky tress.
As lightstruck rain, an Autumn maple leaf,
Clouds at sunset, a daffodil in spring,
Summer-ripened wheat gathered in a sheaf,
Mockingbirds opening their throats to sing,
These things, I think, are not false to compare
In beauty to yourself, a one so rare.